


Morning Glory

by aerye



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-22
Updated: 2011-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-14 23:30:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerye/pseuds/aerye





	Morning Glory

**MONDAY, 5:55 a.m.**

Ray's bedroom faces east and summer mornings like this one, when the sun is up and over the horizon just after five, there's sunlight streaming through the window by five thirty. When they forget to close the shades, as they did last night, as they often do on Sundays, the light just fills the room and bounces off the walls, and Fraser feels the heat even before he's really awake.

This morning he finds himself in a blanket of sunshine, spread out across the bed like a quilt, and he rolls carefully onto his back, trying to dislodge the sheet that is trapping the humidity around his feet, trying not to dislodge Ray where he is half draped over Fraser. Ray's arms and legs and chest are just beginning to dampen in the incipient stickiness of the day, and his sweat mingles with Fraser's, easing the way. It is Monday morning and Monday mornings are always…difficult. Or perhaps challenging is a better world. For both of them, although Ray chooses to believe otherwise. Ray hates mornings, hates getting up early in the morning, and Mondays are Ray's least favorite morning of the week. Fraser has listened more than once to Ray's treatises on Monday mornings, which are generally very repetitive and can be reduced to a singular sentiment—Mondays "suck." Mondays, as Fraser is fully aware, Ray would prefer to roll over and cover his head with his pillow and pretend the day didn't exist, _thank you kindly, Fraser_ , which is what he does most Mondays, and what he will likely do this Monday, as soon as the alarms go off.

Which will happen any moment now if Fraser is any judge of the morning sky, and right on cue, both clocks start shrieking in sharp, short beeps. Fraser reaches over and turns his off immediately but these days he knows better than to get between Ray and his snooze button. It used to a point of contention, used to be "a thing" as Ray would say, before Ray went out one day and came home with an alarm clock he picked up at a discount store, a plastic pudgy dog with a cowboy hat and a vest and a sheriff's badge, and a bright orange clock face set into its belly. Ray called it compromise. Fraser argued that the clock constituted not so much a compromise as a standoff, in the best tradition of the American West so garishly embodied in the device in question. However, Ray's purchase did lead to an immediate cessation of morning hostilities, which even Fraser had to concede was a good thing, and so the digital clock was moved to Fraser's side of the bed, "Deputy Dog" was installed on Ray's, and now both go off at six a.m., right on the dot, high pitched rhythmic screeches that cut right through the heat and the sunlight. Ray's alarm, in keeping with its character, wags its tail in time with its alarm, making a clicking noise, a faint tapping sound against the night stand, just a half second after Fraser's, so there's a odd kind of rhythmic echo that occurs. _Eeep. Beep._ *Click* _Eeep. Beep._ *Click* It should grate but Fraser finds it doesn't; the alarms are of a similar pitch and blend to make an odd sort of music, a familiar kind of clamor.

Fraser gets up right away, of course, given his clock is a mostly a formality. He slides out from under Ray and out of bed, pointedly ignoring the groan and the _beep_ *Click* _beep_ *Click* _beep_ *Click* that continues from Ray's side of the bed, and goes right into the bathroom, where he closes the door determinedly, turns the water on—more cool these mornings than hot—and starts his shower. As he washes he knows that back in the bedroom, Ray is digging his way up out of sleep and slamming his hand down on the snooze button before he burrows back down again, pillow smooshed securely over his head. It’s a process that gets repeated eight minutes later when Fraser pushes back the shower curtain and begins toweling himself dry, and again in another eight, just as he's tightening the laces on his boots and leading Diefenbaker out the front door. Most likely, it happens again in another eight, and again in another eight after that—five, six, seven times even, depending on how much Ray doesn't want to get up on this particular Monday morning, and after Fraser lets himself back into the apartment and fills Diefenbaker’s bowl with kibble, he finally goes back into the bedroom and around to Ray’s side of the bed, and turns the alarm off with a sigh just loud enough for Ray to hear. Ray groans again but still doesn't get up right away, although it appears he's at least awake by now. Going back in the kitchen, Fraser grinds coffee beans and opens the newspaper as he waits for the coffee to perk, and when it’s brewed Fraser goes back into the bedroom with the newspaper in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, real coffee, hot and sweet. It's the smell of the coffee that finally seduces Ray out from under the pillow, blinking slowly, with hair more experimental than usual. Fraser passes him the cup and sits on the edge of the mattress while Ray figures out which end is which and whether it’s up, and what his middle name is, and then Ray finally manages something more vertical than horizontal and drinks his coffee, sliding his fingers into Fraser's and watching him read the front page.

Though Fraser is paying little attention to the news. He can see traces of last night in the emerging bruises on Ray's collarbone and it’s all too easy for him to imagine the stickiness between Ray’s thighs that has him unconsciously shifting and crossing and re-crossing his legs. Fraser can recall vividly the slick heat of Ray, the way Ray drew him in and closed around him, arms and legs and he was inside him, inside Ray…

“Frase, you getting sick?” Ray is rubbing one eye and yawning. “You look kinda, I don’t know, flushed or something.”

Mondays are…challenging.

 **TUESDAY, 6:35 a.m.**

Tuesdays are better.

It's a fundamental fact of life that Ray's never been able to make Fraser understand: Tuesdays are easier to get through just because you've already got a Monday under your belt. So yeah, even though the alarm is going to go off at exactly the same time and even if there's absolutely nothing you're gonna do on Tuesday that you didn't have to do on Monday, it's easier, okay, just because you did it once, just because you did it on Monday and got the first time over with, end of argument.

So when the alarms go off this morning Ray rolls over and slaps his down with a grunt, then scrubs his hands over his face, yawning broadly. They remembered to close the shades last night so it’s cooler in the room, marginally, and it’s tempting just to go back to sleep but Ray feels the mattress dip as Fraser sits up, and so he gets up anyway, just a couple of seconds after Fraser and with relatively little grumbling. He passes Fraser in the hallway on his way into the kitchen and Ray steals a kiss, quick and soft and with just a hint of tongue, and feels Fraser's hand slide along the back of his thigh. Ray showers first on Tuesdays, and sometimes shaves, while Fraser feeds and walks Dief. Then Ray brushes his teeth while Fraser showers and Ray sings along to _Northwest Passage_ as best he can with a mouth full of Crest and with only remembering half the words. Tuesdays, Fraser makes breakfast, usually bacon and eggs, but sometimes omelets, and they eat breakfast together, sitting down and at the table. Sure, Ray's nose is still buried in a cup of coffee for most of the meal but by the end he's awake enough to ask for the sports section, and he nods like he's listening when Fraser reads him stuff off the editorial page.

 **WEDNESDAY, 8:10 a.m.**

Ray's late.

Weekly staff meetings at the Consulate have Fraser out the door before Ray even wakes up, so Wednesdays Ray is on his own.  Which more often than not means he’s late.

Ray eats cereal standing at the sink while he waits for the tap water to get hot, and he has to pummel the candy harder than usual, 'cause it never seems to melt as fast in the instant.

 **THURSDAY, 4:47 a.m.**

Thursdays are potluck, Thursdays are a free for all. By Thursday, they’ve usually been able to get things moving on a case, and a lot of the time Ray's up even before Deputy Dog starts barking—sometimes because they haven't even been to bed yet—and despite Fraser’s objections, breakfast more often than not is an egg sandwich and the world’s shittiest coffee from the break room while Ray runs down a file or a license plate or a set of prints, or books a suspect, or rattles the walls of the interrogation room, playing off Fraser’s “good cop”.

 _Shake, bad guy, shake._

This Thursday they've been out all night because the Kaminski case broke open, wide fucking open. They went to pick him up on old warrant just to get his slimy ass off the street, and walked into the Gunfight at the OK Corral, Kaminski being too much into the creative side of bookkeeping and his partner taking what Fraser called umbrage at how two and two was suddenly not equaling four. Ray didn't know squat from umbrage but if that meant enough firepower to take out half a city block then yeah, Kaminski's partner was making free with the umbrage. So then it was him and Fraser making with the double-talk, and Fraser pulling one of his famous "let's walk into the field of fire and talk the bad guys into giving up their guns" stunts, which required one of Ray's famous "shoot enough bad guys to keep them from killing my partner" stunts, but in the end it worked out okay, and once they saved his ass, Kaminski couldn’t stop talking. They got him, they got his partner, his connection, they even got his girlfriend, who was one piece of work what with the transgender thing going on, and Ray booked Kaminski while Fraser and the girlfriend talked pantyhose.

Now they're coming home and the sun is just rising and the sky is starting to turn pale grey, the streets deserted and the bedroom dim with the early morning light. The adrenaline is still sizzling under Ray's skin, jumping and jiving, on the beat, one-two-THREE-four, one-two-THREE-four. Ray pulls Fraser down on the bed and puts his hands everywhere, everywhere he can, all the places he can reach and all the places he can touch, and Fraser goes soft like putty in his hands, then hard like steel, until Fraser starts breathing kinda funny, in and out, in and out, short, ragged breaths that ratchet in his throat, making noises like he's hurting, and Ray's hands start to shake as they skim over all that naked flesh, chasing tremors over shoulders and arms and belly. Fraser's hands are shaking too where they clutch at Ray, catch in Ray's hair, pulling him down, down, pulling, and all the shaking finally settles under the palm of Ray's hand where it rests against Fraser's thigh, and he's swallowing, swallowing, thick cock down his throat, and Fraser moaning, moaning, and coming.

When Fraser’s dick gets soft again Ray lets it slip from his mouth and then he’s climbing Fraser, like a mountain, like a man on a quest, and Fraser opens to him, opens his mouth and opens his legs, bloom and close, bloom and close, until Fraser rushes up against him like the waves.

 **FRIDAY, 6:17 a.m.**  
   
Thursdays tend to bleed into Fridays and now Ray's working for the weekend. He lets Fraser pull him out of bed without an argument and follows him into the shower.

Some days they run out of hot water.

 **SATURDAY, 6:00 a.m.**

It’s Saturday and Fraser's still up at six, and Ray wakes up just as he and Dief close the front door behind them, heading off to the soup kitchen where Fraser works every weekend, serving up pancakes and sausage and Inuit stories to the less fortunate citizens of Chicago. Ray rolls over and buries his face Fraser's pillow. Fraser's a hit with the kids and Sister Angelica says they couldn't do without him, and some mornings Ray goes with him and ladles out oatmeal, but most mornings he doesn’t even wake up until Fraser’s gone.

Later he'll meet Fraser at the gym and they'll go a few rounds, and then sometimes it's a game, or maybe dinner and a movie, or maybe they’ll take Dief on a long run through the park.

Later tonight he'll pin Fraser against the wall or maybe to the floor, and go _mano a mano_ in a whole other way, and it will be wild and sweet and fierce, but for now he just lies there with his face in Fraser's pillow and drifts back off to sleep.  
 **  
SUNDAY, 10:37 a.m.**

Ray is his religion.

It’s Sunday morning and they sleep late, tangled up together like a square knot, Ray’s arms around him holding on tight and his legs around Ray, and Fraser wakes Ray up with the softest, slowest kisses he can manage, full of heat and tongue. And though he attended church both as a child (as often as the coincidence of traveling librarians and traveling preachers would permit) and as a man, the closest he has ever come to perfect prayer is “Ray, Ray, Ray” whispered into curve of Ray’s neck, the line of his jaw, his heaving belly. Perhaps there is another way to describe the way he touches Ray but all he can think to name it is worshipful, sacred and profane.

His grandmother would be scandalized.

Fraser looks forward all week to Sunday. During the week, Fraser gives his all to duty and country and the City of Chicago. On Sunday, Fraser gives his all to Ray. Sunday mornings Fraser spreads Ray out across the bed and maps him with eyes and hands and mouth. Sunday mornings, Fraser takes without asking, Fraser doesn’t say please, Fraser takes that extra second for himself as Fraser moves Ray and turns him, holds him down and opens him up with fingers and tongue until Ray's hands twist in the sheets, clenching tight until his fingers are white. Ray loves this and hates this, and he doesn’t quite understand it, Fraser knows, although it arouses him terribly, like nothing else Fraser does. The first time Fraser touched him like this, tasted him like this, Ray twisted away, flushed and embarrassed, and looked at him with hot, disbelieving eyes when Fraser said he enjoyed doing this to Ray, wanted to do this to Ray, needed to do it. Now he doesn’t object but he still goes rigid, still relaxes inch by hard won inch, and as Fraser makes love to Ray it feels like every part of him, all of him, is hungry, hands and mouth and heart, and he can’t touch Ray enough. He puts his tongue inside of Ray and it's raw and it's real and the cries that Ray makes feed something primal inside of him.

There’s a mantra in his head, _don’t hold too tight, don't grasp so hard_ , but that doesn’t stop him from giving Ray the edge of his teeth against the back of his neck, and Ray drops his head and moans into his pillow and humps the bed until he’s frantic, until he rises to his knees and lifts his hips and begs in a voice that's little more than a sob until Fraser fills him, fills him up with hard flesh and too much feeling. And still Fraser takes, taken and taking, moving inside Ray with a fierce hunger, hunger and all that feeling that just seems to grow and grow until the rhythm breaks, stumbles, and it all spills out of them both, lays them bare, and Ray’s cry is love, it's joy and surrender, and it rings like shattering glass, cutting deep into Fraser's heart.


End file.
